People often turn to their social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, to fulfill their information needs. For example, when a user associated with a user account in the social network has a question, the user may send a question to one or more friends or contacts in the social network to find an answer. With the average user account having numerous friends, finding which friends to engage can be challenging.
One solution is to publicly broadcast a question to the entire network. At first this seems to allow a user to reach a broader audience and increase the chances of getting a good response. However, it runs the danger of irritating the user's friends when done too often or for a topic that does not interest most people. Furthermore, such an undirected request may easily be lost amongst many other postings, thus leading to potentially content-free responses by friends who are eager or feel compelled to respond, yet who are not very knowledgeable on the topic or have little time to compose more than a cursory message. Finally, public broadcast may also be inappropriate if the topic is sensitive (e.g., advice on a medical condition).
Direct messaging avoids those pitfalls, but presents other problems. It may be time-consuming to think of who to engage with, and choosing poorly risks missing out on relevant and timely responses. Users may not have good insight into who is knowledgeable about a topic, especially if they have never discussed the topic in the past. Users may also not know whether friends are likely to respond, whether due to their willingness to engage or their current availability.